Abraham Lincoln

Appearing as a guest on Friday's All In show on MSNBC, former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines suggested that there is the "functional equivalent of treason" in the White House, and asserted that, unlike President Abraham Lincoln's Republican party, the modern GOP is "intent on tearing apart" the Union.

Longtime presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin was a guest on the Monday edition of CBS's The Late Show, and liberal host Stephen Colbert peppered her with questions about former occupants of the White House, especially her favorites: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson (whom she worked for in the White House). Of course, most of the discussion focused on using history to slam Donald Trump, with the host going so far as to ask his guest which of “her guys” she’d want to "take on" the current Republican president.

During Monday’s CNN Tonight, host Don Lemon discussed a portrait of President Trump alongside previous Republican Presidents with New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. According to Lemon, the image has received “a whole lot of attention” after Lesley Stahl conducted an interview with President Trump for CBS’s 60 Minutes in the private residence at the White House, where the painting was hung on the wall. Somehow, the topics of race and Joseph Stalin managed to come up in the discussion of the portrait.

WASHINGTON — It has been a pretty good week for Donald Trump. The economy is growing faster than anyone on the left or in the middle or among the Never-Trumpers believed possible. Inflation is low, and employment is at a record high. Moreover, the president and the European Union reached an understanding on trade last week that signals the likely end of a trade war, at least with Europe.

Celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson appeared on CNN, Sunday, to lecture those he deemed too stupid to accept the linkage of climate change to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Proving he should stick to science on TV, deGrasse pompously botched history: “Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, signed into law in 1963 — a year when he had important things to be thinking about — the National Academy of Sciences.”

CNN political analyst David Gergen's recent hyperbolic claim that Donald Trump may have had the worst first 100 days of any President in history was so over the top that even his CNN colleagues are still laughing at him the day after. On Saturday's CNN Newsroom, after right-leaning actor and former Gergen subordinate Ben Stein jabbed his former boss by recalling how bad Abraham Lincoln's first 100 days were, CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein joined in by noting that William Henry Harrison died in his first month, inspiring laughter from Stein and CNN host Ana Cabrera. Gergen notably made an appearance on CNN Newsroom a couple of hours later and doubled down, claiming Trump's first 100 days may have been worse than Lincoln's.

Next Tuesday, three days before the current POTUS becomes an ex-POTUS, Jonathan Chait’s Audacity: How Barack Obama Defied His Critics and Created a Legacy That Will Prevail will be published. On Tuesday, New York magazine, where Chait is the chief political pundit, ran an excerpt from the book in which he claimed, “The truth is that Obama enacted careful, deep, and mostly popular solutions to a broad array of problems to which his opponents have no workable response.”

During Saturday's edition of MSNBC's AM Joy program, host Joy Reid disagreed with the chairman of the Black Republican Caucus of Florida, Sean P. Jackson, when he said that if it was not for Republicans, African-Americans would still be enslaved.

“Sean, Abraham Lincoln is long dead. Let’s talk about the current Republican nominee,” Reid said. “I think the reason African-Americans have civil rights is because African-Americans fought for them.”

Paul Krugman claimed recently that the Republican party “went over the edge…when supply-side economics became [its] official doctrine.” The Washington Monthly’s D.R. Tucker reveres Krugman, but he has a different choice for “the moment when the GOP truly lost it”: August 1, 1988, when Rush Limbaugh’s radio show went national. Tucker argued that Limbaugh has "removed all traces of logic, reason, decency, civility and compassion from the party of Abraham Lincoln."

By the sheer size of his audience, many millions of Americans have disagreed, answering "Yes" to Time magazine's question on the cover in 1995: "Is Rush Limbaugh Good for America?" Of course liberals say no.

On the Monday night edition of MSNBC’s All In, longtime liberal columnist Jonathan Alter reacted to President Obama’s executive actions on gun control by remarking how heartbreaking it was for Obama to have met with the families of Sandy Hook victims and “see those six-year-olds stacked up like cord wood.” Then: "After that, he was going to do everything in his power and if people don't like it, his attitude is see you in court and that is — you know, that's one way for a President to act. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. Right?"

After that, he was going to do everything in his power and if people don't like it, his attitude is see you in court and that is — you know, that's one way for a President to act. The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order. Right? - See more at: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2016/01/05/alter-compares-obamas-executive-actions-gun-control-emancipation#sthash.13ttcQyN.dpuf

Joe Scarborough swung a double-edged sword on today's Morning Joe, swiping simultaneously at his MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews and at radio host and debate panelist Hugh Hewitt. The subject was Marco Rubio, with Hewitt calling him "the most dynamic speaker the Republican party has seen ever, since Lincoln." "Since Lincoln," asked Scarborough incredulously—"do you have a tingle going up your leg?"

Scarborough said that rather than recalling Lincoln, "when I see Marco speaking, I'm seeing a guy that's running for student government."Interesting aside: Hewitt predicts that Republicans will have an open convention, with no candidate having wrapped up the nomination before the delegates get to Cleveland in July.

There was no way that Chris Matthews was going to let the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's assassination pass without using it as an occasion to slander the GOP as a "Jim Crow"-loving racist party unworthy of the label Party of Lincoln.

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